Apple’s App Store approval process is infamously obscure. No one really knows what happens when you send an app in for approval to Apple: you spend weeks in the dark without word, and then are either released into the wild or brutally rejected, usually for the most vaguely stated of reasons.

It’s not only frustrating, but it’s a discouragement for app developers to program for the platform… not to mention a generator of an astonishing amount of bad press for Apple. It’s probably more the requirement for damage control, though, than any sympathy with frustrated developers that has spurred Apple to add to their Developer Center webswite the ability to track the status of their apps under review.

But this is Apple, so needless to say, the process is still cryptic. The new Developer Center will alert developers, when they are logged in, on the status of their approval, with nine levels available for submitted applications. These status levels include “in review,” “ready for sale” and “rejected.”

That’s certainly a step in the right direction, but while giving developers a metric for how soon they can expect their app to be released into the wild is indisputably a good thing, it’s not the real problem. The real problem is Apple’s seemingly arbitrary and completely unilluminated App Stire rejection policy, which can, at best, be described with the word “lolwut.” Until Apple makes explicit what its rejection policy actually is, developers are always going to feel trepidation when they submit an app.